Bill on Union Organizing Introduced in Congress

WASHINGTON – The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), a controversial bill that would make it easier for workers to organize into labor unions, was formally unveiled on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.

EFCA was one of the issues discussed at NPMA Legislative Day. Attendees were asked to encourage their congressional representatives to oppose EFCA which would “amend the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to establish an easier system to enable employees to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to provide for mandatory injunctions for unfair labor practices during organizing efforts, and for other purposes.”

Currently, NLRA establishes two primary ways that employees are able to form or join a union: 1) a private ballot election administered by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) after at least 30 percent of workers have signed authorization cards or 2) the collection of signed authorization “check cards” from a majority of employees in a bargaining unit.

EFCA fundamentally alters the NLRA by allowing unions to used the “card check” process or signature campaign each time they try to organize employees. If enacted, EFCA would require the NLRB to certify any union that secures a simple majority of signatures through this petition-like process. Such a process effectively allows the establishment of unions everywhere without a valid vote. Under the “card check” method, union organizers present employee signatures on authorization cards as representing the true intent of the workers. However, even a Federal Appeals Court has noted that, “Workers sometimes sign union authorization cards not because they intend to vote for the union in the election, but to avoid offending the person who asks them to sign, often a fellow worker, or simply to get the person off their back.”

NPMA and other believe that the only way to guarantee worker protection is through the continued use of a federally supervised private ballot so that personal decisions about whether to join a union remain private. Swapping federally supervised private ballot elections for a “card check” process tramples the privacy of individual workers who should not have to reveal to anyone how they exercise their right to choose whether to organize their coworkers in a union.

See also “Democrats unveil bill to encourage unionizing”